Student Research Spotlight: Ryan Logan (Marine Biology PhD Program)

Ryan Logan is a graduate student in the Marine Biology PhD program at the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences, who just recently successfully defended his dissertation in a public defense.

Congratulations to the very-soon-to-be Dr. Ryan Logan!

 

Briefly talk me through your research journey from your 1^st day at NSU to today.

I began in the summer of 2017 as a Research Associate with NSU’s Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI), fresh off completing my master’s degree in California. In the beginning, I didn’t necessarily want to start a PhD right away because my master’s degree was very intensive, so I was lucky that Dr. Shivji could bring me in as a Research Associate to begin my career at NSU. During that first year, I was given a dataset of smooth hammerhead shark tracks that GHRI had collected over the previous two years. With those data, I was able to write a study that was published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.566364/full) on the seasonal movements of these sharks, which are an endangered species that we know surprisingly little about. But, as time went on and Dr. Shivji asked if I was interested in doing a PhD working with billfish in Panama, I knew I was ready.

During my time as a PhD student, I traveled back and forth to Panama several times, probably making up to 15 trips to a world-renowned fishing lodge called Tropic Star Lodge, in a very remote part of southern Pacific Panama. Each trip would last on average 2-3 weeks, with my longest stay upwards of 3 months. While at the lodge, I would be out on a boat every single day from 6am to 4pm trying to catch marlin and sailfish. While I don’t expect to get any sympathy from anyone, these could be very long days. However, I was able to collect some really interesting data over the course of all my time down there. I have been able to publish a couple of studies from this data which make up the first two chapters of my dissertation (https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/article/79/7/2055/6660731 ; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-28748-0 ), as well as being a co-author on 4 other published studies with colleagues from NSU and other universities, with several more on the way.

I was lucky enough to receive several scholarships during my time as a PhD student to help pay my tuition and am very thankful for all of the funding and support provided to my PhD project from NSU Halmos College of Arts and Science, Guy Harvey Foundation, the Guardians of the Eastern Tropical Pacific donor group and Tropic Star Lodge. In addition, there were several other external funding sources that allowed this work to be completed.

 

What made you interested in the type of research you are currently working on?

Ever since I was a child, I was always interested in predators. Growing up in Colorado, I didn’t have a ton of interest in the ocean, and most of my interests were in snakes and lizards. However, as I moved into high school and college age, I became very interested in fish. And the logical step as someone who is interested in fish and predators, is sharks. So, during my undergrad at the University of Hawaii (studying marine biology), I interned at the shark lab and became very interested in the research side of shark science, and was amazed at how little information existed. That led me to become very interested in shark movements and behavior, which is how I ended up at the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach for my master’s degree, and what eventually drew me to the Guy Harvey Research Institute.

 

What made you decide to work with your current research mentor?

I had heard Dr. Shivji’s name mentioned in the ‘shark world’ for a very long time, but never had the opportunity to meet him. Interestingly, Dr. Shivji is a geneticist by training, so I never thought our paths would really cross, because my work is primarily movement and behavioral ecology, and I have very little experience in genetics. However, lucky for me, Dr. Shivji is also the director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute which focuses on the movement ecology of a wide range of sharks and billfish, which is what drove me to contact him about a position in his lab.

 

How does this work relate to your future career goals and what do you plan to do next?

My immediate future plan is to start a post-doctoral fellowship back in Southern California. Southern California is a nursery area for great white sharks, and my post-doc will be focused on studying the juvenile great whites that call this area home for a few years before they become large enough to move offshore. In general, I will be trying to figure out why they choose the habitats they do, in order to predict where they may spend their time in the future.

 

How has NSU helped you pursue and/or achieve personal and professional goals you have set for yourself? Any specific NSU resources used that you would like to mention?

NSU has been an instrumental part of my time here and the success of my PhD. The facilities are world class and have given me the opportunity to use a variety of methods to answer the questions I set out to for my PhD. Because my research was based out of Panama, I never needed to use the NSU boats for any of my research, but I can tell you firsthand that having boats and a marina at your disposal just outside the front doors to your office is something you are not likely to encounter at many universities.

 

What advice do you have for other students interested in getting involved in research?

This is a difficult question to answer because there are so many different paths under the umbrella of ‘research’. For me and the type of research that I do, it is important to have a combination of skills that are useful in the field and on boats, but also at the computer for data analysis. To get field experience, I recommend asking around to different labs if anyone is doing any fieldwork that needs help. From all of my time doing fieldwork, it is always nice to have an extra pair of hands around. On the opposite side of this is data analysis, which requires time and patience to learn. Something I wish someone had showed me prior to my master’s was R, which is a free programming language that is extremely useful for data analysis. There are TONS of online resources and tutorials out there for beginners. I know that if a student approached me and said they had experience being on a boat and know how to code in R, they would be the first one I would ask to help me.